Bank Closed by Feds Reopens

Published 6:00 pm, Sunday, February 3, 2002

OAKWOOD, Ohio (AP) _ A bank reopened under new management Monday, days after its president was charged with embezzling $40 million to invest in South Carolina gambling boats.

The Oakwood Deposit Bank Co. branches in Oakwood and Grover Hill in northwest Ohio are now branches of the State Bank and Trust Co., a Defiance-based bank.

"It was business as usual," Tina Farrington, spokeswoman for State Bank's parent company, Rurban Financial Corp., said Monday. "A lot of people just came in to ask questions and see if the bank looked any different."

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. seized and closed the Oakwood bank Friday, the day its president, Mark Steven Miller, appeared in federal court on a bank embezzlement charge. If convicted, Miller could be sentenced up to 30 years in prison.

Miller, 47, was being held without bond in a county jail in Toledo and is due back in court Feb. 11. Miller's lawyer, Martin Mohler, did not return calls for comment over the weekend and Monday.

While investigating $5 million in bad checks, auditors from the Federal Reserve Bank and FDIC asked Miller about discrepancies in the bank's books.

According to an FBI affidavit unsealed Friday, Miller admitted that he has manipulated bank records since at least 1999 to send cash to Stardancer Casino Cruises, based in Myrtle Beach, S.C.

The company was formed four years ago after its controlling owner, Sam Gray, met the Millers through a mutual friend.

Gray told The Blade of Toledo for a story Saturday that Miller and his brother, Gregory Miller, own 38 percent of the company's stock. Gray said Mark Miller, who goes by his middle name Steven, also has lent the company millions of dollars.

"I know these guys, and they're family. I just never would have believed it," Gray said. "I'm absolutely floored by this thing."

He said he thought the money came from the Miller brothers' Ohio-based investment company, Sanlor.

"I had no idea this was Oakwood bank dollars," he said. "I can assure you that our company, we felt these were loans and we certainly will endeavor to pay everything back."